Exchange Team Blog

• Released: Exchange Server 2013 Management Pack May 15, 2013
  The Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 Management Pack (SCOM MP) is now live! As I discussed in my Managed Availability article, the key difference between this management pack and previous releases, is that our health logic is now built into Exchange, as opposed to the management pack. This means updates to Exchange 2013 (like our cumulative updates), will incl […]
• Released: Exchange 2013 Server Role Requirements Calculator May 14, 2013
  download readme It’s been a long road, but the initial release of the Exchange 2013 Server Role Requirements Calculator is here. No, that isn’t a mistake, the calculator has been rebranded.  Yes, this is no longer a Mailbox server role calculator; this calculator includes recommendations on sizing Client Access servers too! Originally, marketing wanted to br […]
• Use Exchange Web Services and PowerShell to Discover and Remove Direct Booking Settings May 10, 2013
  Prior to Exchange 2007, there were two primary methods of implementing automated resource scheduling – Direct Booking and the AutoAccept Agent (a store event sink released as a web download for Exchange 2003). In Exchange 2007, we changed how automated resource scheduling is implemented. The AutoAccept Agent is no longer supported, and the Direct Booking met […]
• Ask the Perf Guy: Sizing Exchange 2013 Deployments May 6, 2013
  Since the release to manufacturing (RTM) of Exchange 2013, you have been waiting for our sizing and capacity planning guidance. This is the first official release of our guidance in this area, and updates to our TechNet content will follow in a future milestone. As we continue to learn more from our own internal deployments of Exchange 2013, as well as from […]
• Public Folders and Exchange Online May 2, 2013
  “You mean… this is really happening?” Last November we gave you a teaser about public folders in the new Exchange. We explained how public folders were given a lot of attention to bring their architecture up-to-date, and as a result of this work they would take advantage of the other excellent engineering work put into Exchange mailbox databases over the yea […]
• Introducing Message Analyzer, an SMTP header analysis tool in Microsoft Remote Connectivity Analyzer May 1, 2013
  Microsoft Remote Connectivity Analyzer is a web-based tool that provides administrators and end users with the ability to run connectivity diagnostics for our servers to test common issues with Microsoft Exchange, Lync and Office 365. The tool started as Microsoft Exchange Server Remote Connectivity Analyzer, and based on your feedback we've continued t […]
• Troubleshoot your Exchange 2010 database backup functionality with VSSTester script April 29, 2013
  Download Frequently in support, we encounter several backup related calls for Exchange 2010 databases. A sample of common issues we hear from our customers are: “My backup software is not able to take a successful snapshot of the databases” “My backups have been failing for quite a while. I have several thousand log files consuming disk space and I will even […]
• Exchange 2010 Database Availability Groups and Disk Sector Sizes April 24, 2013
  These days, some customers are deploying Exchange databases and log files on advanced format (4K) drives.  Although these drives support a physical sector size of 4096, many vendors are emulating 512 byte sectors in order to maintain backwards compatibility with application and operating systems.  This is known as 512 byte emulation (512e).  Windows 2008 and […]
• Updated: Exchange Server 2013 Deployment Assistant April 22, 2013
  We’re happy to announce updates to the Exchange Server 2013 Deployment Assistant! We’ve updated the Deployment Assistant to include the following new scenarios: Upgrading from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2013 Upgrading from Exchange 2010 to Exchange 2013 Configuring an Exchange 2013-based hybrid deployment for Exchange 2007 organizations These new scenarios pr […]
• Troubleshooting Rapid Growth in Databases and Transaction Log Files in Exchange Server 2007 and 2010 April 18, 2013
  A few years back, a very detailed blog post was released on Troubleshooting Exchange 2007 Store Log/Database growth issues. We wanted to revisit this topic with Exchange 2010 in mind. While the troubleshooting steps needed are virtually the same, we thought it would be useful to condense the steps a bit, make a few updates and provide links to a few newer KB […]